


The Most Dangerous Game

by SeeEmRunning



Series: Run-ins [3]
Category: Criminal Minds, Supernatural
Genre: (And not the sexy kind), Asphyxiation, Canon-Typical Violence, Choking game, Gen, Pre-Series, Seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 09:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1221847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeeEmRunning/pseuds/SeeEmRunning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgan catches sight of a familiar face at a high school where teenagers are dying of asphyxiation. But it's not like Sam Winchester could be there, right? That would make him either the unsub or the unluckiest kid in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Most Dangerous Game

**Author's Note:**

> Another episode rewrite with Sam Winchester in a prominent role. This one takes on the episode with the Choking Game, although that's mostly background. Still, since I'm messing around with CM canon so much, I ended up writing Prentiss/Blake completely out of the story. Sorry about that.
> 
> Also, Sam's psychic powers crop up a little earlier than normal.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! Please feed the review box.

Morgan's first glimpse of him came when they were talking to the principal and he walked by in the hallway. It was a flash, his face barely visible for a second, and Morgan could dismiss it as just a trick of the light. Periodically wondering what had happened to him didn't mean he'd ever see him again. Still, he was unsettled - what if he actually _was_ here?

He shook it off and turned his attention back to Reid, who was convincing the principal to let them talk to classrooms full of kids. Putting on his most winning smile, he started playing off Reid. It wasn't long before they had her eating out of the palms of their hands.

It took half an hour to arrange, but then they were good to go. They started with the youngest, the ninth-graders. Amazingly hormonal but easily cowed, the fourteen-year-olds believed what they were told with only a few questions. The tenth-graders were much the same.

They knew they'd have a problem when they hit the junior class. They had two full years of being indoctrinated into school spirit, but unlike the seniors, they weren't looking at colleges. School pride meant more to them than any other grade, and it showed on their mutinous faces.

It wasn't until the third classroom they visited that Morgan thought maybe he hadn't been seeing things that morning. He and Reid had been talking quietly with the teacher while they waited for the bells to finish so class could start, and they weren't paying much attention to the teenagers streaming in. So when Morgan and Reid turned around to face another classroom of sixteen-year-old smartasses and they saw Sam Winchester, they were taken entirely by surprise.

So was he, judging by the way he automatically tensed. He was sitting in the back of the room, and the two agents were in the front, but it was clear he'd put on muscle mass since the last time they'd seen him even though what little fat he'd had was gone, leaving his face sunken and sallow. The hair he'd let grow out curled down around his neck, possibly to hide a scar left by the shock collar he'd sawn off with a pocketknife. He licked his lips nervously. Morgan couldn't see his hand, but his right arm twitched like he was stroking something - his thigh? His knife? Something else in his pocket?

Morgan went through the presentation on the effects of oxygen deprivation with half his mind on Winchester. What was the saying - once is bad luck, twice a coincidence, thrice a pattern? This was the third time the kid had turned up where the BAU was. The first time he'd been the victim; the second time they hadn't even thought to ask him questions about his involvement. This time sent up all sorts of red flags: if the Winchesters weren't behind any of the three cases, Sam had the worst luck of anyone Morgan had ever met. The blank look on his face meant he was trying to control himself, but he wasn't doing very well. The kid's eyes were flicking to the windows and doors - he was feeling trapped. Guilt? Or knowledge that they'd think him responsible? He was too smart not to realize they'd be suspicious.

"Any questions?" Reid asked, drawing the presentation to a close.

"Yeah," one of the kids called. "How do we know you're not just making that shit up?"

Winchester rolled his eyes and shot the kid a look best described as _You're too stupid to exist_ before assuming a look of polite indifference. Ignoring the language, Reid said, "Because we have decades of peer-reviewed studies to draw on."

"And we've seen it happen first-hand," Morgan added. "Come on, kid, you know hanging used to be a way to carry out a death sentence."

"And the warnings on plastic bags," Reid said.

"You just want us to lose the competition," a boy three rows back on the left-hand side called. Confusion flickered over Winchester's face for a brief instant before his poker face reasserted itself - did Winchester not know about the competition, or had something else stymied him?

"I don't want you to even compete," Reid corrected. This was an accusation they'd heard four times before, and by now the response was almost rote.

"Any other questions?" Morgan asked.

Nobody said anything, but from the looks on their faces, only about half the kids believed them. Morgan hoped, for everyone's sake, that cooler heads prevailed.

On their way out, Morgan stopped by Winchester's desk. The teenager looked up at his face, expression still carefully controlled but with fingers fluttering around his pocket. Morgan glanced down at Sam's bag and jerked his head, a silent order.

Winchester frowned. His eyebrows raised as if to ask _now?_

Morgan raised his eyebrows in return. Winchester scowled and stood, grabbing his bag from the floor and following them out into the hallway. "I've only been in the state a week," he said as soon as the door closed behind them.

"Good for you, kid," Morgan said. "But we're interviewing you, anyway. Especially after that hospital stunt last time." He was surprised to find he was still angry about that; Winchester had been right at the center of the storm, and he'd left six hours after being admitted to the hospital with a gunshot wound. He shouldn't even have been _conscious_ , let alone in any state to leave.

"I didn't even know I was leaving," Winchester said testily. "I woke up after the surgery in the back of the car."

Morgan and Reid exchanged glances. The doctor had mentioned self-inflicted scars on the list of wounds; if the family had taken him out of the hospital without his knowledge, there might be a reason beyond bills. This close, Morgan could see that what he'd taken for more muscle was actually more clothing, and Winchester's face was the kind of thin that practically _screamed_ his body was in starvation mode. It was a case for neglect, if not outright abuse.

"You're still going to the station," Morgan informed him. "And we're calling our supervisor, so don't even think of trying to slip off."

Sam snorted. "You think I'm stupid enough to try to run from people who already have me?"

He had a point, not that they'd tell him that. Instead they met a uniform outside the school, made sure to tell him they didn't think Sam was responsible for the deaths, and went back inside to continue the presentations.  
***  
This wasn't the first time Sam had been picked up by the police. It wasn't even the first time this year. It _was_ , however, the first time he'd been picked up for something that had happened a year before. 

He also wasn't sitting in an interrogation room, which was new. Instead he was in what looked to be an informal lounge, waiting for someone to show up. His dad was in Wisconsin on a job, and Dean had gone with him, so Sam was on his own for this one.

The door opened, revealing a short Italian man with a salt-and-pepper beard. "Sam Winchester?" he said.

Sam stood politely. "Hi."

The man smiled. "Have a seat. I'm SSA David Rossi."

Sam was too familiar with the FBI at this point to not know what the initials stood for. He sat when Rossi did.

"So, Sam," Rossi said. His voice was just this side of casual, but his eyes were sharp. "How's your foot?"

"Fine, thank you," he said. It still bothered him when rain was coming or he stepped wrong, but Rossi didn't need to know that.

"And your neck?"

Sam self-consciously touched the scar that had been left there. "It's all right."

"Good to hear it. Are you wondering why you're here?"

"Well," Sam half-drawled, "I'm assuming it's because of all the deaths recently, and being near three cases you've worked has made you a bit suspicious."

Rossi chuckled. "Not entirely. We didn't get your statement from the warehouse last year."

Sam raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Uh-huh. You pulled me out of school to get a statement for something that happened ten months and four states ago."

"Four states since then? You move a lot, huh?"

"This is my ninth high school." Sam didn't mind telling him that; anyone with half a brain would check his transcripts and learn that factoid. "We move more in the summer because there's less paperwork."

"That's a lot of adjustment for anyone, especially someone your age."

Sam met his eyes squarely. "Are you admitting this is about more than the warehouse?"

"This is just an interview," Rossi said smoothly. "Do you want your dad here?" Sam shook his head. "What about your brother?"

"No reason to drag him into this. Besides, he and Dad are away on business for a little while."

"All right, then. Tell me what happened last year."

"From when?"

"From whenever seems relevant."  
***  
Rossi fought the urge to rub his eyes. The kid was good at giving a statement - _too good_ , part of his mind insisted - and better at deflecting personal questions.

Still, despite the wariness Rossi was more accustomed to seeing on the faces of fellow veterans than on teenagers, he couldn't fault Sam's answers. Precise, to the point, sure of detail. Winchester had gone over this before, at least a dozen times, most likely. His father was a Marine, Rossi knew that much - maybe he'd been the one to drill Sam on what had happened?

It was a standard interview, really, and not relevant to the case they'd been called in for. Rossi wrote down what Sam said and that was it, appreciating the pauses Sam allowed him to catch up on the transcription. For the first twenty minutes, anyway. Then things got interesting.

Rossi was too busy writing to see when the boy's face changed, but he heard it. Sam broke off mid-sentence; thinking it was just a reaction to reaching the point in his story where he'd shot somebody, Rossi finished writing before he looked up.

"Sam?" he prodded, leaning forward. The clipboard fell to the ground, but that didn't matter; Sam was pale and shaking, staring into the middle distance. His eyes fluttered and, as Rossi watched, he slipped off the side of the chair.

He lunged forward in time to catch the teenager, who hadn't reacted. Rossi wasn't sure Sam was mentally there at all, and pinned under him, Rossi couldn't stand and leave to get assistance.

"Can I get a little help in here?" he bellowed. Sam's nose was bleeding and his eyes were shifting restlessly. He was still shaking badly.

Seizure. Not convulsing, so not grand mal, but moving with eye tracking, so not absence. Complex partial?

The door burst open and Hotch, JJ, and a local LEO stood there. The uniform had a hand on her weapon.

"What happened?" Hotch demanded, already moving forward to help pull Sam off Rossi.

"I don't know," Rossi said. "I was taking his statement about last year and then he just…" He trailed off, knowing Hotch would understand.

Sam's eyes got bigger, if that was at all possible, and then he stopped moving entirely as his eyes closed and he blew out a breath. Hotch and Rossi got him on his side. "Call an ambulance?" Hotch asked.

JJ shook her head. "Wait until we know if he needs one."

A shuddering gasp signaled Sam's return to consciousness. "Sam?" Hotch said, putting a hand on his back.

Sam scrambled away from him like he burned, getting himself up against a couch and curling into himself, arms over his ears and face pressed tight into his knees. _Blocking out light and sound_ , Rossi realized.

"We've got this," Hotch said to the uniform. She nodded and left, closing the door behind her; without the background noise of the police station, they could all hear Winchester's labored breathing as he fought to calm down. "Sam?" Hotch tried carefully.

Sam twitched, then jerked to standing, breathing raggedly. It wasn't lost on any of them that his weight was balanced on the back foot of his wide stance - defensive. He was expecting to be attacked.

God, he was so _small._ Rossi didn't remember him looking that tiny, even though then he'd been draped in an oversized shock blanket and now he was wearing normal clothes. It had only been a glimpse, but every child he'd ever had a hand in saving was burned into his memory. And Sam's face hadn't been so gaunt, he didn't think, even in the pale light of the full moon and backlit by the ambulance. He hadn't even looked that small when he'd been giving his statement minutes before - was it Sam that had changed, or just Rossi's perception of him?

"Sam," JJ said carefully. "Can you calm down for us?"

Sam blinked at her, wired eyes finally focusing. Tilting back and forth a little bit, he got his feet under him in some semblance of 'normal' before he pressed an arm to his nose. "Shit," he said, voice muffled. "Sorry."

"It's okay." JJ moved forward. "Do you need anything? Water, painkillers?"

Sam nodded. "Ibuprofen?"

Hotch stepped forward and put a firm hand on his shoulder to push him down onto the couch. "Sit. Relax for a bit. Seizures aren't something to play around with."

Sam looked up at him. "Seizures?"

Hotch, Rossi, and JJ looked at each other. This was going to be a fun conversation. "I'll get the ibuprofen," Rossi volunteered. Better to leave this conversation to the people who had living children of their own, even if it did make him a bit of a coward.

Garcia bustled toward him as he made his escape. "Oh! There you are! I was just coming. I did some digging and guess what I found on our boy in there? Wait, where are you going? Did he leave?"

"Relax," Rossi said. "I'm getting him painkillers. He had a seizure."

"A seizure! No! Oh, that - anyway. Back on track. Maricopa County, Florida, the lovely little Winchester clan pulled a fast one."

"What kind of fast one?" He liked Garcia, he really did, but her eccentricities were a little tiring.

"Samuel Francis Winchester is an emancipated minor."

That pulled him up short. "You're kidding."

"Nope." Garcia beamed at him. "It looks like they got the paperwork through two months after the whole school bus incident."

Rossi started walking again, heading for the break room - this police station kept a cabinet stocked with OTCs. "So he's legally an adult?"

"Yep."

"Why would they do that?"

"Records also show they've been flagged in twelve states for neglect or abuse. They probably got it through so CPS couldn't get to him."

Rossi shook his head in amazement and started rooting through bottles. "The more we run into this family the more confused I get."

"I feel ya. Oh, and Morgan just called, they're bringing in a kid who looks good for the website."

"Good." Rossi's fingers closed around the ibuprofen. "Let me know when he gets here? I'm going to go back to Sam."

"Yessir." Garcia bustled off, probably to do something tech-y; pretty much everything she did was over Rossi's head.

When he got back to the room, he asked, "One or two?"

"Three," Sam said. Rossi raised an eyebrow but spilled them out into the cap anyway; either JJ or Hotch had already gotten him a cup of water.

"I have enough for your statement," Rossi said, keeping his voice quiet. He really didn't, but the statement was ancillary - as Sam had realized, suspicion came upon anyone who ran into the same FBI team at three different crimes. "Where are you staying? I'll take you home."

"Eastern Motel," Sam answered. A ghost of a smile flitted across his face when he saw their expressions. "Yeah, I know, but it's cheap and it's furnished."

"And with how often you move, that's a good thing," Rossi said dryly.

Sam shrugged. "Pretty much."

That was the last thing he said in the station, silent from the time he picked up his schoolbag and followed Rossi out until he parked outside the motel. "Thanks," Sam said quietly when Rossi stopped.

"Listen, Sam, I know it's none of my business, but - why don't you stay somewhere a little nicer?"

Sam smiled tiredly. "Can't afford it. Good-bye, Agent Rossi."

He shut the door behind him, and that was the end of that.

Or rather, it was the end of that for several hours, in which time they took down the unsub, saved the teenager's life, and were halfway through reports when the station erupted in noise. One of the LEOs - the same woman who had come when Rossi had yelled earlier - stuck her head in. "Hey, that kid who had a seizure, he's at Eastern Motel, right?"

"Yes, why?" Hotch asked.

She swallowed. "There's a brawl. Mostly teenagers. Well, I say brawl. It's more of a pile-on. They kicked down the door of 18 - manager said the kid in that room's been by himself most of the last two weeks - dragged him out and started laying into him. He's fighting back, and we've got cars on the way. Just thought you might wanna know."

It took them thirty seconds to get to their cars, and another three minutes to get to the motel, by which time the uniforms had the fight almost under control, tugging back teenagers and throwing them into an old-fashioned paddy wagon. There were still a good few fighters, maybe seven or eight, and even from the car they could tell all but one had next to no experience.

By the time they'd gotten out of the car, two additional fighters were down and the police had pulled three more away. That brought the total to around two dozen the police had dealt with.

By the time they reached the wall Winchester's back was to, there was just one fighter left; Morgan grabbed him from behind and twisted away, taking Winchester's kick on his hip. It would have hit the boy in the ribs, probably hard enough to break at least one, but Morgan wasn't a fight instructor for nothing: he was far enough back the foot only clipped him and he turned with the momentum. It hurt like a bitch, and his leg buckled for a moment, but he would be fine.

"Sorry," Sam said quickly, "sorry, sorry…"

"It's fine," Morgan said impatiently, frog-marching the boy away.

"What happened here?" Reid asked.

Sam snorted. "You two geniuses pull the new kid out in the middle of class after there have been five deaths and you talked about asphyxiation for twenty minutes. What do you _think_ happened?"

Reid flinched.

Sam continued, ranting angrily, "Not sure how they found out where I lived, but hey! At least it's not like I'm stuck here for another month or anything, or that I'm probably going to be held responsible for damages, or that most of these assholes went to school with me so I'm going to have to try to find some way to move towns without a car or funds." His voice cracked on the last word and he bit down on a knuckle, hard enough to draw blood. JJ remembered the self-injury Sam had apparently indulged in for a while, if he wasn't still. "I just - fuck. Never mind what I just."

He looked exhausted. Getting attacked mere hours after having a seizure probably wasn't a good thing, and something Sam had said earlier rang in Rossi's ears - _Dad and Dean are away on business for a little while._

Morgan returned from his trip. "You hurt?"

Sam shook his head. "Not too bad."

"You alone?"

"Yeah."

Hotch saw the teenage attitude coming out and tried to deflect it before it became a problem. "Can we get your statement?" he asked before Morgan could continue that line of questioning. "I'd rather not drag you back to the police station so late."

Sam nodded, resigned. "Sure. Let's get this over with."

Hotch pulled out his notebook; Sam waited for him to flip to a clean sheet and scrounge a pen from his pocket before starting. "Like I said, I'm not really sure how they found out where I was staying. I was asleep when I heard someone kick in the door-"

"Asleep?" Hotch interrupted, pausing in his writing. Ten-thirty was pretty early for a sixteen-year-old to be asleep.

Sam smiled wearily. "I had a _seizure_ , Agent Hotchner. Those tend to tire me out."

"Right," he said sheepishly. "Continue."

"So like I said, I heard someone kick in the door. I got out of bed and they started punching me, kicking me, and I started hitting back. I got outside and got my back to the corner wall" - they were on an inside corner, Hotch realized, the kid had gotten himself somewhere he could see everyone coming at him and limited the number who could reach him at once, which meant this wasn't his first brawl - "and they all just came at me. I guess someone called the cops, and here we are."

"You fought well," Hotch said. "Where'd you learn?"

Sam smiled bitterly. "My dad taught me. He's an ex-Marine."

"No such thing as an ex-Marine," Rossi said.

Sam chuckled, a shadow of something in his eyes. "Believe me, I've noticed. Look, do you need anything else, or can I get things straightened out with the manager now?"

"Go ahead," Hotch said, and Sam walked away, limping a little.

"Are we really just-" JJ began.

"We don't really have a choice," Hotch interrupted. "He's legally an adult, and he's the victim here. We can't force him to do anything right now."

Reid's mind whirled. The teenagers had participated in the 'game' of their own free will, why were they blaming Sam? it didn't make sense. "We didn't know this would happen," he said apologetically.

"Doesn't mean it didn't, kid," Morgan said. "Might as well just help with the clean-up."  
***  
The motel manager was more understanding than damn near any other Sam had ever dealt with. He offered to switch Sam to another room, even told him there wouldn't be an extra charge. Sam was suspicious at first - overly friendly motel managers were a breed Sam had dealt with before in increasingly violent ways - but when the man commented about the insurance, Sam understood. He'd be getting more money from the company than it would cost to fix the door. By the time the manager had given him a different key, humming happily all the while, Sam had figured out he was actually the owner - though why it had taken him so long to figure out, he would never know, except maybe the head wound had something to do with it. He could feel blood dripping down the back of his scalp and underneath his collar.

Sam left the office with a tired smile and a wave. All that was left to do was sew himself up, pack his stuff, and clean the salt from the doorjam and windowsills. He could call his father and brother later, when they'd actually be awake.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he scanned the parking lot and didn't see the FBI agents, even though it made his ribs hurt like hell; at least one was broken. The SUVs were still there, so the agents were around, but hopefully they'd leave him alone long enough to get a handle on his temper again. He'd been short-tempered with them earlier, on the brink of a complete meltdown after that last vision of someone he didn't know getting her heart ripped out by a werewolf. He'd long since stopped trying to pass on the details to the _real_ hunters in his family, the ones who didn't screw up constantly - he'd too often been told to either give them a place and a time or shut up. So he shut up, knowing in his bones they were just one more thing that set him apart, the most obvious in a series of faults that made him filthy.

Damn he was morbid tonight. He made a mental note to check for a concussion when he got to a mirror.

He surveyed the damage when he got back inside room 18. Broken table from where his first assailant had crashed into it, but otherwise, nothing was out of order. He closed the door as much as he could, swept the salt into his hand and then into the trash can or kicked the small grains into the carpet, and hauled out the weapons duffel, closing his eyes against the tight burst of nausea and dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him when he bent to drag it from under the bed. The bowie knife that had been under his pillow - and Sam hated himself for not grabbing it before he rolled out of bed to kick some ass - went into his waistband. The only other thing in the hotel room was his own duffel, filled with clothes and a basic field medic's kit, and that went over his free shoulder.

Sam left the room with two duffel bags and knew the room held no indication of him ever being there except maybe some hair and fingerprints that would soon be lost to the rotating occupancy of cheap by-the-hour motels. He unlocked the door to Room 19 and toed the weapons bag under the far bed before unzipping his own bag and pulling out the first aid kit.

First he wrapped his ribs, which showed enough bruising to make him think there was more than one break, and his sprained knee. His pupils had reacted the way they should when he looked in the mirror, so no concussion. There was a cut in his scalp and one on his arm deep enough to need stitches.

He took a Percocet before he threaded the needle. Two would make him too loopy to get the job done, but not taking any was a recipe for disaster.

The cut on his arm was halfway stitched when there was a knock on the door. He swore quietly and tied off the thread, yelling, "Just a minute," and wrestling on an old button-down - his ribs were far too sore to deal with a T-shirt.

He opened the door to find Morgan and Hotchner. "Well this is a surprise," he said sarcastically.

A half-smile flickered over Hotchner's face. "That attitude's going to get you in trouble one day."

"I can take care of trouble," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, about that," Morgan said. "How'd you take out so many?"

"To be honest, it's all kind of a blur." Sam sure as shit wasn't going to tell him how he'd really done it, and if his father ever learned he'd figured out a way to use telekinesis as well as see the future he was dead. "But I've been trained and they were a bunch of angry teenagers. And I got to a place only two people could really get close enough to throw a punch, so." Sam tilted his head. "Is that all?"

"We also wanted to give you our cards." Hotchner held out two blue-and-white rectangles and Sam accepted them. "If you ever need anything, give us a call."

"Thanks," he said, already knowing he wouldn't.

"Here's hoping - for everyone's sake - we don't run into you again, kid," Morgan said.

"At least not at a crime scene, right?" Sam teased.

Morgan grinned, teeth flashing predatorily in the dark. "That's right. Cause I gotta say, three times is usually a pattern."

"And four times is almost guaranteed guilt, yeah, I know," Sam said.

"Take care of yourself, Sam," Hotchner said, offering a hand.

Sam shook it. "You too."

With that, they were gone, and Sam closed the door. Considering for a moment, he tucked the cards away inside his wallet; no telling when they might come in handy. He went back to the bathroom, shucked his shirt, resterilized the needle, and started sewing himself up again.

When he was done, he went back to the empty room, curled up beneath the sheets, and hugged a flat pillow in lieu of calling his brother. That could wait until Dean was awake and hopefully away from their father. It could wait until Sam could control himself. Dean made everything better, and after a day like today, that was all Sam really wanted.

He dropped off into an uneasy sleep plagued by nightmares of distorted screams, technicolor gore, and his father screaming that if he left he could never come back.


End file.
